Friday, October 4, 2013

Evolutionists Call New Plant Epigenetic Study 'Heresy'

New research has uncovered a hidden layer of trait-determining epigenetic information that resides outside
the DNA sequence in plants. This new discovery challenges the
evolutionary paradigms of the scientific community and their
long-standing views on how organisms adapt to changing environments at
the molecular biological level of the cell. In fact, some are even
calling this recent research "evolution heresy."1

For over the past 50 years, Darwinian evolutionists have attributed
changes in an organism's traits to the specific DNA sequences that code
for them. They never anticipated a hidden layer of epigenetic
information overlaying the DNA code to be directly involved in how a
plant interfaces with its environment.

Both plants and animals have genetic machinery that modifies the
information and function of their genomes without actually changing
their genetic code. This modification process is known as "epigenetics."
One of the best studied of these epigenetic processes involves the
chemical tagging of DNA nucleotides across the genome using methyl
groups. These "methyl tags" are attached to cytosine nucleotides in
specific patterns around genes and other expressed sequences by a
specialized group of proteins called methyltransferases.

This methyl-tagging system (methylation) plays a key role in
determining how and when genes are turned off and on along chromosomes.
The specific placement and maintenance of these methyl tags is both
dynamic and precise. When a cell divides and its DNA is replicated, the
duplication of its methyl-tag patterns is also copied, and this complex
systems engineering is only now beginning to be understood.

A recent study of the Arabidopsis plant adds to the emerging importance of epigenetics in adaptation.1
In this project, researchers tested 80 different Arabidopsis strains
that were nearly identical genetically, except for some that lacked a
gene controlling proper DNA methylation patterns. Thus, the test focused
on a large population of genetically similar plants that had both
normal and aberrant levels of methylation in their genomes. The
researchers tested the plants over several generations for flowering
time and root growth.

The goal of the study was to determine if variability in these traits
was passed along from generation to generation by genetic or epigenetic
differences. They found that the DNA sequence in the regions of the
Arabidopsis genome that control both flowering time and root length was
identical for all 80 plants and did not contribute the observed
variability. What they discovered was that the inherited variability for
these traits was associated with methylation changes!

This whole scenario presents a variety of substantial problems for evolution...CONTINUE READING